In recent years, the accessibility and affordability of handheld technologies has made it commonplace for a single consumer to own several different portable electronic devices. Depending on the type of portable electronic device, accessories such as battery chargers and head phones, for example, may be provided in the packaging. Whether replacing a cell phone year after year or adding a portable music player, digital video camera or portable video game player to one's collection, duplication of accessories is very common.
Currently, there are no industry standards in place that dictate audio jack pin-out configuration for electronic devices having audio input and output capability. Therefore, the same headset, for example, will generally not work with portable electronic devices from different manufacturers. In order to avoid this problem, some electronic device vendors have begun to dictate the audio jack pin-out of the portable electronic devices that it will sell in order to ensure that the same accessories will work with the different devices. It is common for vendors in different countries to have different pin-out preferences, therefore, portable electronic device manufacturers who sell their devices to more than one vendor must incur additional costs to produce devices having different audio jack pin-outs.
One solution to this problem is to sell adapters that enable communication between incompatible accessories and portable electronic devices. This solution results in additional costs to the manufacturer and the consumer and also has the added inconvenience of requiring the consumer to keep track of adapters specific to each accessory. It is, therefore, desirable to provide an improved solution to the incompatibility of portable electronic devices and accessories.